15k teachers on panchyat poll duty

SHIMLA: Around 15,000 school teachers have been put on month-long election duty in violation of Right to Education Act. Sources in the education department say this would compromise studies of students as a large number of posts of teachers are already lying vacant in the state. With panchayat elections due in the state in November, teachers have once again been put on election duty.
Around 1,000 to 1,500 teachers from each district have been appointed as booth level officers or designated officers to be on duty from September 15 to October 14 and will not be teaching for this one month and some teachers have already been allotted duties for National Population register maintenance updation from September 7 to October 6.
According to sources in HP directorate of education, there are more than 7,000 vacancies of teachers in government schools of the state. There are around 2,000 vacancies of lecturers in higher education and around 2,500 vacancies of TGTs (arts, commerce and science), around 2,000 vacant posts of C&V teachers in upper primary and around 1,000 posts of JBT teachers in primary education.
Officials from the education department says this is in violation of Right to Education. "As per the Act, teachers cannot be deployed in any other work than teaching for such long time," said a top official.
HP government teachers' union president Virender Chauhan said the state government was jeopardizing the future of students by allotting electoral rolls to education sector and that too to teachers.
Additional chief secretary (education) P C Dhiman said he would definitely take up this issue with the election department.